Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 18:43:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: manufacturing dissent
MANUFACTURING DISSENT
REVOLUTION, NOW?
A week-long meeting of 1,000 haggard
young anarchists
turns out to be a hotbed of media savvy,
`culture jamming'
and creative fervour. It's all about
resisting corporate power and creating
your own space.
Saturday, August 22, 1998
By Hal Niedzviecki
Toronto -- Last Monday morning at 9 a.m.,
a motley band of punks and dishevelled
youths spilled out onto the front lawn
and sidewalk of a side-street community
hall in downtown Toronto. Passers-by may
have taken this group of pierced,
post-industrial Visigoths for nothing
more than an unusually early-rising
contingent of the squeegee kids who vie
to wash windshields at every major city
intersection. And in fact, some of them
were.
But these particular young rabble-rousers
were also anarchists, nineties-style,
congregating to parse strategies of
"culture jamming," "billboard
liberation," artistic media manipulation
and alternative economics. They were
gathered outside west Toronto's Symptom
Hall, a ramshackle "underground"
downtown
meeting place near the old stomping
grounds of "Red Emma" Goldman, for the
opening of the Active Resistance
conference, which in the last six days
has brought together some 1,000 young
anarchists and activists from all parts
Anarchism has never really been the
disorganized free-for-all it pretends to
be, or the fancy synonym for "chaos"
favoured by some pundits. In fact, these
young people are the latest heirs of a
sophisticated anti-government,
anti-corporate philosophy of voluntary
cooperation with roots at least as far
back as the Paris Commune of 1871 -- and
even further. They can claim fellow
travellers as illustrious as Leo
Tolstoy,
Pierre Proudhon, Henry David Thoreau,
Emiliano Zapata,the late Canadian writer
and scholar George Woodcock, the
Yippies,
Diggers and Provos of the sixties, and
turn-of-the-century radical feminist
"Red
Emma." Rather a heady pedigree for a
career in bumming spare change.
For most middle-aged adults, youth
rebellion and protest means boomer-era
flower children. But the sixties image
of
a mass of young people, mostly college
students, uniting against racism, war
and
oppression -- while indulging in a
little
pot and the occasional bout of "free
love" -- is a far cry from the reality
of
Active Resistance. The gloomy wood
interior of Symptom Hall was alcohol-
and
drug-free. Many attendees were unwashed,
tattooed, studded and battle weary. Some
were unsure where they'd sleep during
the
week-long event. Others told of
harassment by police and authority
figures. They had no illusions that they
could simply hold hands, chant and
change
the world.
It may sound bleak, but it's also
culturally sophisticated. Today's young
radicals are turning away from
traditional protests and sit-ins, toward
concerts and readings and street
performances to build scenes that break
through the isolation and apathy of
passersby.
"It's getting across a homemade radical
culture of people doing for themselves,"
explained Maegan Willan, a former
Toronto
resident now going to school in Olympia,
Wash., who helped co-ordinate the
conference's Art and Revolution Core.
(Participants could attach themselves to
one of four groups. The other three were
Community Organizing, Alternative
Economics and Building Revolutionary
Movements.)
"Have art mean something," Willan
advocated. "Create something that isn't
about money. We're responding to
mainstream culture by saying this is our
space: I don't acknowledge the authority
of the corporation to own public space."
In fact, the new activism is all about
attracting and repelling media
attention.
Growing from the phenomenon of "cultural
jamming" -- defacing Nike, Calvin Klein
or Bank of Montreal ads on billboards
and
in bus shelters to turn slogans back on
their makers; faxing hoax communiqus to
the press; invading toy stores to switch
the voice boxes of GI Joe and Barbie
dolls, putting up fake corporate Web
sites -- the Active Resistance crowd
pours its energy into ideas about street
theatre, pirate radio and other means of
creative empowerment. They even have
support among individuals working in the
ad agencies that are creating the very
images and slogans Active Resistance
wishes to jam. These allies have helped
concoct the fake corporate logos and
phony ads found in such "culture
jamming"
periodicals as Vancouver-based
Adbusters.
The last big meeting of the Active
Resistance crowd was in Chicago in 1996.
The final demonstration of the last
major
anarchist gathering in Toronto -- in
1988, when many of the participants of
Active Resistance were still in grade
school -- became an out-of-hand
confrontation with city police that was
debated in anarchist 'zines for years
afterwards, while the mainstream news
media settled for wide-eyed
condemnation.
For this wave, though, it's not enough
just to give interviews and invite the
press to attend protests. Today's
activists realize they have to control
their own content.
Active Resistance organizers turned down
a request by the CBC Newsworld show Big
Life , hosted by hipster Daniel Richler,
to do a segment, and have banned
mainstream-media reporters from much of
the conference site. Monday morning,
they
launched the week's events with a
sardonic "anti-press conference." The
twenty-something organizers handed out
colour-coded press passes with
"suggested
questions" like: "What kind of spin can
I
put on this conference to maximize the
sales of my commercial sponsors'
products?"
But graffiti-covered ads and throwing
reporters off guard are really just the
beginning. "I used to really enjoy
culture jamming," said another Art and
Revolution organizer, Toronto resident
Dave Fingrut. "I think it's an
interesting phenomenon, but you're
focusing attention on the product you
are
opposing. The act of culture jamming is
just a stepping stone to more radical
action. Spray painting over an ad isn't
going to change society. It's the
difference between vandalizing a KFC ad
or burning down a KFC like they did in
India." Dressed in a nondescript T-shirt
and sporting a bushy beard, Fingrut
wasn't advocating the destruction of
fast-food franchises. But the Active
Resistors do court spectacle, which they
consider the key to revitalizing
political dissent. "We want you to be
able to walk away knowing how to put
together large-scale street theatre to
take over your city," said David (most
participants prefer to operate on a
first-name basis only) from San
Francisco, addressing roughly 100
aspiring activists at the first meeting
of the Art and Revolution Core on
Monday.
Gaunt but enthusiastic, David showed
slides from a 1996 protest in Chicago
against the U.S. presidential elections.
The polite crowd broke into applause
when
they saw how his giant street puppets
"confronted the ugly corporate power
behind the U.S. government" and how the
"coffins of democracy" were delivered to
Democratic and Republican campaign
headquarters. By the same time the next
day, this group would be hard at work
building their own giant puppet images
for use in today's downtown Toronto
protest Hands Off Street Youth. Karen
Manko had come from Manitoba to listen
and participate. "It sounded
interesting," she said, shrugging off
the
distance she'd traveled to be there.
Creativity isn't just a buzz word at
Active Resistance. For a lot of these
kids, it functions as a religion, a
mantra for a new millennium. "Don't just
say your town sucks," advised Giz, an
Oakville, Ont. punk with the compulsory
multicoloured hair and big black boots.
"Make it not suck!"
Giz and her co-conspirator Cory
conducted
a "freeskool" workshop, another of the
20-odd caucuses and group discussions
that took place daily around the city
throughout the week. About 25 people
looked right at home on Tuesday crammed
into the decrepit upstairs pool room at
the Big Bop -- renamed the Bakunin Bop,
after the 19th century Russian anarchist
Mikhail Bakunin, for the week. The
discussion at hand was entitled "How to
develop an active scene in the boonies"
and Cory and Giz had a lot to say. In
Oakville, they publish a zine, put on
regular punk shows and benefits, and
have
founded the group Youth Against Hate
(YAH!). The consensus in the Bakunin was
that starting something up in a small
town or a suburb requires more
imagination than in the big urban
centers
-- you have to use music and other "fun"
draws. The most important thing, they
counselled, is to keep trying. "Don't
get
discouraged. There's lots of common
ground that alienated kids in the 'burbs
have that you can tap into."
Back at the Art and Revolution core,
people were hard at work shaping
cardboard and papier mach into huge
puppets. There was concern that planned
images like an eight-armed "Octocop" and
a enormous squeegee kid on a crucifix
would come across as too negative.
"It's important to foster a sense of
creativity in the community as a whole,"
said Fingrut, "so the blandness of
left-wing political ideology doesn't
turn
people away. Art is a really good medium
for getting across political messages."
While the causes are much the same as
they were in the sixties, for this new
brand of agitators -- publishing their
own magazines, organizing their own
concerts and, as Giz and Cory said,
"setting our own moral standards" --
activism is also an end in itself. And
long after the kids have thumbed their
way back home, and the puppets have
molted back into mere paper and glue,
the
large-scale theatrics of Active
Resistance '98 will no doubt be replayed
on small stages in boonies and 'burbs
across North America.
Active Resistance '98 continues through
tomorrow, in various locations in
downtown Toronto.
Hal Niedzviecki is the editor of Broken
Pencil magazine and Concrete Forest: The
New Fiction of Urban Canada (McClelland
& Stewart). He recently published Smell
It, a collection of short fiction .
D.I.Y. AND BRING YOUR OWN PLATE
Excerpt from ANARCHY IN THE STREETS?:
THE
ACTIVE RESISTANCE 1998 ZINE
Introduction: AR is working towards an
anarchist society which is
anti-authoritarian and self-governed, in
which people organize themselves from
the
bottom up on an egalitarian basis.
Food : We do not have lots of plates or
cutlery, so as much as possible, please
supply your own.
Media : Sympathetic media will be
getting
a BLACK badge. Most of these people will
be covering AR for radical publications.
Corporate media will be getting GREEN
badges. They will be excluded from all
living spaces of AR. For other events,
workshops or cores, individuals or
groups
can decide if they wish to allow GREEN
media.
Art and Revolution : Organizational
skills as well as art skills emerge from
working on a particular struggle in a
finite amount of time. People will learn
how to translate specific campaigns for
projects into political street theatre.
The hands-on approach is an effective
means of integrating theories of
resistance and creative direct-action
strategies.
(P.O. Box 123, 275 King St. E., Toronto
M5A 1K2)
From THE PUNK FICTION GUIDE TO DO IT
YOURSELF (D.I.Y.) SHOWS by Cory and Giz
More kids would organize shows if they
knew just how simple it really is. . . .
The secret to getting a venue is to use a
phone book and to be persistent. If none
of [the halls or clubs] pan out, go to
the churches section. . . . One of the
things that might trouble you about
bands
is the fact that you don't know any.
Never fear, as long as you know how to
morph into a social butterfly and kiss
ass with the best of 'em at every show
you'll have no problems. . . . Even if
some of the bands give you a maybe . . .
what the hell, throw them on the flyers
too. This works well 'cuz even if the
band doesn't show up everyone comes
anyway (but you didn't hear that from
us). . . . Here's a hint: If you find
that you have to charge more than 5 or 6
dollars you probably overspent somewhere
along the way. Or maybe you're just
being greedy."
(www.knowhow.com/punkfiction/)
CULTURE JAMMERS UNITED
Here are a few of the resources
available
to anyone interested in further reading
or rabble-rousing in the world of
nineties Canadian anarchism and culture
jamming .
ZINES
Adbusters -- The world's premiere
journal
of culture jamming, the founders of such
phenomena as Buy Nothing Day and TV
Turnoff Week. (1243 West 7th Ave.,
Vancouver, BC V6H 1B7)
Conformist -- Mississauga's
collage-crazy
critique of consumer society is a great
primer for the kinds of zine antics that
entertain, shock and inform. (1105
Shagbark Cresc., Mississauga, ON L5C
3N5)
Red Alert -- Sew your own reusable
menstrual pads! Do-it-yourself
gynecology! This is sex ed for women who
want to reclaim their bodies from the
dubious ministrations of the hygiene
industry. (c/o Concordia QPIRG, Rm. 101,
2130 McKay, Montreal, QC H3G 2J1)
Tally -- A reader-friendly mixture of
feminist politics, women in indie rock,
and a continuing Independent Resource
Directory. (6356 Summit St., Halifax, NS
B3L 1R9)
GROUPS
Food Not Bombs -- For most of us, eating
is a cultural activity, but what our
restaurants throw out isn't just
material
for future anthropologists -- it's also
the focus of this group with chapters in
major cities across North America. They
recycle food that would otherwise get
thrown out, and serve it to the homeless
and at shows and protests. (70 Baldwin
St., Toronto, ON M5T 1L4, stefan-AT-tao.ca)
Tao Communications -- Maintaining that
"information should be free," this
wide-ranging Toronto-based group, a.k.a
the Media Collective, creates "tactical
arts intended . . . to encourage groups
and indviduals to join us in our
struggle
for democracy." (P.O. Box 108, Station
P, Toronto, ON M5S 2S8, www.tao.ca)
Anti-Racist Action -- Labelled a
quasi-terrorist group by some police
forces for their in-your-face approach
to
white-supremacist groups, ARA confronts
racism on the streets, organizes its own
demonstrations, and puts on widely
attended benefit punk shows. (P.O. Box
291, Station B, Toronto, ON M5T 2T2,
www.web.net/~ara)
Librairie Alternative -- One of the
country's longest-lived anarchist
institutions is this Montreal bookstore
and meeting point, with a wide selection
of reading materials and an array of
local troublemakers. (2035 Blvd.
St-Laurent, Montreal, QC H2X 2T3)
Under the Volcano -- Practicing
arts-based "active resistance" with
concerts and events since 1989, this
West
Coast festival had its most recent set
of workshops and shows a week ago, and
distributes a directory of
anti-authoritarian activist groups.
(P.O. Box 21552, 1850 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, "Salish Territory," V5N 4A0,
www.audience.com/volcano)
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